- Reggae/funk rockers 311 make yet another appearance in Utah (what is it, once a month now?) - with Snoop Dogg (pictured) and Fiction Plane as the opening acts - 7 p.m. at Usana Amphitheatre, 5150 S. 6055 West, West Valley City. Tickets are $47 at SmithsTix.

- "China's Stolen Children," an HBO documentary about human trafficking in China, screens at 7:30 p.m. at the Rose Wagner Center for the Performing Arts, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City. Free.

- Marie Digby and Eric Hutchinson, two singer-songwriters for the price of one, 7 p.m. at In the Venue, 579 W. 200 South, Salt Lake City. Tickets are $15.50 at SmithsTix and 24Tix.

Labels: Tonight's schedule

You can come out of your homes again, citizens - the "High School Musical 3" shoot has packed up and left Salt Lake City.

The Utah Film Commission confirmed that the movie - a theatrical sequel to the popular Disney Channel franchise - wrapped shooting at East High School on Sunday.

Some stars didn't wait that long to get out of Utah. Paparazzi blogs (such as this one) have photos of "HSM" co-star Ashley Tisdale arriving at LAX on Saturday.

The movie opens in theaters nationwide on Oct. 24.

(Photo: Flawed Hollywood)

Labels: Paparazzi

You know the economy's in bad shape when an ice-cream parlor in Salt Lake City - where a banana split is one of the few allowable vices - can't stay open.

Squirrel Brothers, at 605 E. 400 South, has announced on its marquee sign that it is closing - and nobody was answering the phone during business hours this weekend.

Squirrel Brothers had taken over the old Snelgrove Ice Cream location, marked by the distinctive double-cone sign (catty-corner from the rival Baskin-Robbins), a few years ago - and it was one of the last places where you could get a cone made with Snelgrove Ice Cream. But the Snelgrove plant's new owners announced in February that the Snelgrove brand was being phased out.

If your computer ever crashes in Utah, take comfort in the knowledge that there are plenty of people here who know their way around a motherboard.

A recent study by the Milken Institute puts Utah among the top 10 states in technology and science. Utah is No. 8, up from No. 9 in the previous study in 2004.

Meanwhile, a study by AeA, a trade association, ranks Salt Lake City as third in terms of high-tech job growth among U.S. cities. The tech industry here added 2,300 jobs in 2006 (the latest data available for the study), a seven percent increase, for an industry total of 34,300.

My, it's a busy weekend - with something for everybody:

- The Utah Arts Festival chugs along today through Sunday at Library Square, noon to 11 p.m. each day. Headliners: Reggae rockers Passafire tonight at 8:15; The Chicago Afrobeat Project tonight at 9:30; The Eric McFadden Trio with Bernie Worrell tonight at 9:45; eclectic rocker Chuck Prophet tonight at 9:45; Farewell and HELL-O, human and multimedia performance, Saturday at 10 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m.; world-music band Traveler, Saturday at 4:45 p.m.; Latin rocker Javier Garcia, Saturday at 9:45 p.m.; Jazz combo Three Squared, Sunday at 6:45 p.m.; and bluegrass fiddler Michael Cleveland and his band Flamekeeper, Sunday at 9:45 p.m. Tickets are $10 each day, and free for kids under 12.

- The Nilbog Invasion, a three-day celebration of the terrible 1990 cult-fave movie "Troll 2," runs tonight through Sunday in Morgan, Utah (about 22 miles east of Ogden), where the movie was filmed. Outdoor screenings, games, contests and meet-and-greets with the "stars" and director are on tap. Click here for passes and information.

- Country star Tim McGraw plays the Usana Amphitheatre tonight at 7:30. Tickets range from $33 to $63, at SmithsTix. Halfway to Hazard and Jason Aldean are the opening acts. If you're going, I'd advise you to not to hurt anybody as you rush the stage - Tim hates that.

- Jerry Seinfeld performs stand-up tonight at 7 and 9:30 at Abravanel Hall. Tickets are $60 at ArtTix.

- The Vans Warped Tour, with more bands than I could name (or probably recognize), plays Saturday at the Utah State Fairpark, 155 N. 1000 West. Doors open at 11 a.m. for the all-day rock extraganza. Tickets are $27.66 in advance, $30 on the day of show, at SmithsTix. (Read my colleague David Burger's interview with Katy Perry, pictured, who's breaking through the Warped Tour's glass ceiling.)

- '80s rocker Richard Marx will be right there waiting for you, Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Sandy Amphitheater, 1245 E. 9400 South, Sandy. Tickets are $18-$28 at SmithsTix.

Labels: Tonight's schedule, weekend schedule

I caught a bit of Thursday night's Earth Harp Jam Session at the Utah Arts Festival, and it looked like a lot of fun.

I just wish I could have heard it.

The set-up is impressive - long strings of brass musical wire running from the long wall of Library Square down to the library's round concrete mini-amphitheater. On the stage, the harp's artistic director, Bill Close, solicited volunteers from the audience. Each volunteer put on heavy gloves and, at Close's direction, started rubbing their individual string in a rhythmic fashion while other musicians - I saw a guitarist, a flutist and two tuba players - jammed along.

The results sounded something like a Philip Glass composition. At least, that's all I could hear over the music bleeding over from the Amphitheater Stage on the other side of the wall, where blues singer Janiva Magness was starting her set - some unfortunate scheduling on the festival's part.

The Earth Harp Jam Sessions are scheduled tonight, Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m. - and there's a full-blown Earth Harp performance Sunday at 9:30 p.m.

Don't be surprised if you see Sen. Orrin Hatch in a Salt Lake City movie theater this weekend.

The Utah Republican is mentioned prominently in the documentary "Bigger, Stronger, Faster*," a look at the rise of steroids in American sports and life (which opens today at the Broadway Centre Cinemas), though not in a way that would flatter him.

Director Christopher Bell points out that because of Hatch's shameless legislating to keep the dietary-supplements industry unregulated. Because of Hatch's work, Bell says, anyone can throw pretty much anything semi-edible into a bottle of nonfat dry milk and call it a dietary supplement - and Bell actually does this in the movie (with his own before-and-after photo, pictured at right, on the label).

Companies in Utah, Bell points out, produce about a quarter of the supplements sold in the United States - a $240 billion-a-year industry.

- The Utah Arts Festival kicks off its four-day extravaganza today, through 11 p.m., at Library Square (210 E. 400 South, Salt Lake City). Tonight's headliners: Blues singer Janiva Magness (8:15 p.m., Amphitheater Stage), roots-and-blues band Moreland & Arbuckle (9 p.m., Park Stage), and Native American blues rockers Indigenous (9:45 p.m., Amphitheater Stage). For full details, go to the festival's web site.

- Punch Brothers, an acoustic bluegrass band featuring Nickel Creek mandolinist Chris Thile, plays the Sky Lodge Plaza in Park City. Dinner starts at 6 p.m., show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $95 or $125 (depending on whether you get the light buffet or the big dinner), available by calling the Park City Performing Arts Foundation at 435-655-3114.

- Faun Fables, an Oakland band that mixes experimental music with snippets of dance and puppetry, plays Kilby Court, 741 S. 300 West. Tickets are $10 at 24tix.com. Opening acts are Purr Bats and Chaz Prymek; the show starts at 7 p.m.

Them Hollywood paparazzi are everywhere - even in Utah.

The celebrity web sites JustJared.com and Splash News Online published photos of Nick Lachey (former boy-band member and Jessica Simpson's ex) and Vanessa Minnillo (former host of MTV's "Total Request Live") poolside at a Salt Lake City hotel.

Lachey's in Salt Lake City this summer, as host of ABC's reality show "High School Musical: Get in the Picture." Minnillo's here because Lachey's here.

You have to wonder, though, about how much the folks who run these celeb web sites really hate their jobs - or hate themselves - based on the snarky commentary accompanying the photos. Take this from Splash News:

Why Salt Lake? No, they haven't converted to Mormonism (evidenced by the beer Vanessa drinks from) but Nick has actually been working. Seriously. A real job. Not just appearing somewhere or presenting the most expensive "Hot Wheels" car but a proper job hosting ABC's reality show "High School Musical: Get In The Picture."
Well, at least it's a proper job for the ex-boybander and current Z-list residing Nick. The sad part is, with "High School Musical" in the title, a chimpanzee could be hosting this show and the ratings would be through the roof.
Actually, I think the chimp would be more charismatic.

Really, if your job was spending all day writing snide comments about people you hate, wouldn't you be hitting the want ads?

(Photos: JustJared.com)

Labels: Paparazzi, Reality show

The Utah Arts Festival starts today - and amid the food vendors, performances and artists selling their wares is the biggest musical instrument you're ever likely to see.

The Tribune's Kathy Stephenson reports today on New York artist Bill Close, who has strung 3,000 feet of brass musical wire from the giant wall of the Salt Lake City Library, creating two giant harps that the public can play starting at 8 p.m. tonight through Sunday.

Check out this multimedia story by Tribune photographers Chris Detrick and Jim Urquhart about the installation of Close's "Earth Harp."

Labels: Utah Arts Festival

My colleague David Burger today profiled Marcus, the single-named West Jordan comic who's competing for one of the 12 finalist spots on NBC's reality-competition "Last Comic Standing."

Marcus' specialty is impressions, but he says he's got more than that in his repertoire. "I loved guys who could do it all, like Sammy Davis Jr," he said.

His limited exposure on TV so far has netted Marcus a year and a half of bookings. But he's performing one last show for his home-state fans Saturday at Wiseguys in Orem.

All of this does leave one question: Will Bill Frost, the City Weekly's TV critic, finally shut the heck up about the Trib not doing a story about Marcus?

Labels: Marcus, Reality show

- Mark Knopfler, performing without Dire Straits, 7:30 p.m. at Abravanel Hall, 123 W. South Temple. Tickets range from $62 to $82, available at ArtTix.org.

- "The Drowsy Chaperone," the touring version of the Tony-winning Broadway musical, starts a five-night run at 7:30 p.m. at the Capitol Theatre, 50 W. 200 South. Tickets range from $30 to $60, available at ArtTix.org.

- Fear No Film Festival (the film component of the Utah Arts Festival) has a special advance preview, spotlighting the Utah Short Film of the Year competition, 8 p.m. at the Main Library auditorium, 210 E. 400 South. Free.

Labels: Tonight's schedule

The intent of this article, written by folks at the Cirque Lodge in Sundance, is noble enough: To take the fear out of drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

But the headline is laughably tasteless: "Making drug rehab fun."

The Cirque Lodge has become a popular destination for Hollywood celebrities dealing with addiction. It's recently been popular with celebs who deny they have addiction problems: Eva Mendes checked in recently, it was reported, to do research for a role - and Kirsten Dunst told E! Online she went there because of depression.

Labels: rehab

A breathless world waits to know: What's on Barack Obama's iPod?

According to Rolling Stone (which has the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on its cover again this coming week), Obama is a big Stevie Wonder fan - but also has a lot of Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Jay-Z in rotation, as well as "everything from Howlin’ Wolf to Yo-Yo Ma to Sheryl Crow."

As someone who believes that there is no line between politics and pop culture - that, as Nick Hornby said in High Fidelity, "what really matters is what you like, not what you are like" - I should be the last one saying this, but how shallow has our political discourse become if we're asking what a candidate listens to on his iPod?

Of course, this isn't the lowest level of trivialization - and neither was the "boxers or briefs" question asked of Bill Clinton in 1992. After all, nobody actually based their vote on that answer. (Whether he kept his boxers or briefs on at crucial moments of his life was another issue.)

The low point was in 2004, when people looked at George W. Bush and John Kerry, and voted for Bush because he was "someone I could sit and have a beer with." Since the odds that you will ever get to sit and have a beer with your president are pretty low (unless you're a lobbyist who donated vast sums to his campaign fund), shouldn't you be more worried that your president (whether Republican or Democrat) stay sober and concentrated on the world's problems - so you and your friends can relax and have a few beers?

Labels: Barack Obama, politics

The folks at Destee Nation Shirt Company have one of the cooler ideas going - one that I wish could expand to Utah.

As described in this recent New York Times Magazine article, the Seattle-based Destee Nation sells T-shirts with vintage designs of real-life small businesses - diners, record stores, tourist attractions, and the like. The company signs deals with the small businesses, in which the small businesses keep the rights to the designs - and gets royalties based on T-shirt sales.

Right now, the businesses represented by the shirts are limited to California, Washington, Arizona and Hawaii. But there are plenty of Utah businesses that would be worthy of such retro-chic recognition.

Thumbing through the book Utah Curiosities, by Vulture emeritus Brandon Griggs, here are a few choice ones:

• Ruth's Diner, Emigration Canyon
• Shooting Star Saloon, Huntsville
• Smith and Edwards, Ogden
• Dairy Keen, Heber
• Lehi Roller Mills, Lehi
• Sunglow restaurant and motel, Bicknell
• Big Rock Candy Mountain resort, Marysvale
• Parry Lodge, Kanab

- Bob Weir (pictured), the Grateful Dead's longtime guitarist, and his current band RatDog play the Depot, 400 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Govt. Mule is the opening act. Show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $49, available at SmithsTix.

- Rev. Father Centurio Olaboro, of the Uganda Martyrs Orphan Project, will address the United Nations Association, at the Sugar House Garden Center, 1400 E. 2100 South, Salt Lake City. Dinner starts at 6 p.m., the lecture is at 7 p.m.; $17 for the dinner, free for the lecture. Call Maxine at 801-277-7493 for dinner reservations.

- Salzburger Echo - playing music from Switzerland, Germany and Austria - gives a free show at the Brigham Young Historic Park, State Street and North Temple, Salt Lake City, at 8 p.m.

(Photo: Paul Neuguebauer, courtesy of RatDog.org, taken April 12 at Suwannee Music Park, Live Oak, Fla.)

Labels: Tonight's schedule

For today's Culture Vulture column, in the dead-tree Tribune, I met Elaine and Virginia Madsen - who were in Salt Lake City on Monday for a voter-registration campaign, Freedom of Expression Through Film.

Virginia Madsen is the Oscar-nominated actress from "Sideways," who also starred in "Firewall," "The Astronaut Farmer" and "The Number 23." Her mother, Elaine, is a poet and documentarian, currently editing a movie, "I Know a Woman Like That," about women aged 64-to-94 who are not letting age slow them down. (Virginia is the movie's producer, and Elaine's onscreen travel partner.)

Labels: politics

You can only trust Page Six, the New York Post's gossip page, as far as you can throw it - so take that into consideration with this news that Shawn Southwick King, former Provo resident and current wife of CNN host Larry King, is going into rehab for a painkiller addiction.

Shawn King, 48, has gone public in the past about her problems with chronic migraines.

Labels: rehab

If you're a connoisseur of hyperbole, these sentences - the opening of Chapter 2 of David A. Price's new history of Pixar Animation Studios, The Pixar Touch, is a choice morsel:

Now and then in history one finds a time and a place that seems to be charmed, where talent has assembled in a way that appears to defy all laws of probability - drama in Elizabethan London, philosophy in Athens during the third century BC, painting in the late-fifteenth-century and early-sixteenth-century Florence. One of the lesser know among these is Salt Lake city in the 1960's and early 1970's - to be precise, computer graphics at the University of Utah computer science department.

Price goes on to describe the halcyon days when Dave Evans and Ivan Sutherland ran the U. of U.'s computer-graphics department and attracted all kinds of hot talent - notably Ed Catmull, the Granite High grad who went on to become one of the founders of Pixar.

The book - which The New York Times Book Review section reviewed and excerpted Sunday - is a bright read, most valuable for its description of the early days of computer-animation leading up to the formation of Pixar. (After 1995, the year "Toy Story" is released, the narrative is too dependent on news reports and P.R. material - apparently Pixar discovered the importance of non-disclosure agreements with its former employees.)

Labels: Pixar

The letters to the editor keep coming in regarding "The Sock Obama," the offensive doll being marketed by a West Jordan, Utah, couple that equates a presidential candidate Barack Obama - an African-American - to a monkey.

A typical argument, expressed in one letter, says that "the Obama sock toy is not any more offensive than Pat Bagley's Salt Lake Tribune cartoons depicting President Bush as a monkey. The only difference is that Obama is black and Bush is white."

No, it's not the same thing. When you depict George W. Bush as a monkey, you are criticizing Bush as an individual, not making a statement about all white people. Depicting Obama as a monkey, because of its historical and cultural precedent, is making a comment about all black people as inferior.

Some historical examples:

• The 19th-century physician Josiah Clark Nott, in his book Types of Mankind, theorized that the human race was actually several species -- and its illustrations misleadingly suggested that “Negroes” were a class between Europeans and chimpanzees.
• In 1983, sportscaster Howard Cosell was criticized for saying "look at that little monkey go" during a run by Washington Redskins receiver Alvin Garrett, who is black. Cosell said his intent was not racist -- and, in fact, he had used the "monkey" remark to refer to white athletes on occasion.
• One of the Los Angeles police officers tried in the 1991 beating of Rodney King sent a computer text message referring to a domestic disturbance in an African-American family as ''right out of 'Gorillas in the Mist.' ''

Some have defended the Lawsons, the marketers of "The Sock Obama," by saying they didn't know the monkey comparison is racist. If they didn't, that's surprising but not impossible. But now they do know - and if they keep pursuing their plans (as the Tribune has reported), they cannot hide behind ignorance as a defense.

Others say the Lawsons are protected under the First Amendment. True enough. They can say any bigoted thing they choose - but they shouldn't be shocked if the exercise of their free-speech rights doesn't leave them as societal outcasts.

Labels: Barack Obama, politics

- The Utah Museum of Fine Arts' big new exhibit, "Monet to Picasso: From the Cleveland Museum of Art," opens today. Museum hours are 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Admission is $5; $3 for seniors and children 6 to 18; and free for kids 5 and under.

- If you start driving now, you might make it to Cedar City in time for the opening performance of "Cyrano de Bergerac," the first premiere of the Utah Shakespearean Festival's 2008 slate. Starts at 8 p.m.; available tickets range from $16 to $40.

- Wolf Eyes, a band that specializes in ear-splitting electronic noises, plays the Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, Salt Lake City. Opening acts: I Hate Bees and The Tenants Of Balthazar's Castle. Show starts at 9 p.m.; tickets are $10 at 24tix.com. (Nobody under 21 admitted, on account of the demon alcohol.)

(Artwork: Claude Monet, "The Red Kerchief: Portrait of Mrs. Monet (La capeline rouge, portrait de Madame Monet)," 1868–78. Oil on fabric; 99 x 79.8 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr. 1958.39. © The Cleveland Museum of Art.)

Labels: Tonight's schedule, UMFA

North Ogden's own Kelsey Nixon could be making you dinner tonight, if you dine at Red Lobster.

Nixon, one of the contestants on "The Next Food Network Star" (and a one-time intern at The Salt Lake Tribune) made a Macadamia Crusted Tilapia with White Chocolate Beurre Blanc that wowed 30 Coast Guard servicemembers and the judges - including Michael LaDuke, the senior executive chef for the Red Lobster chain.

Not only did Nixon win the challenge (a nice change of fortune, considering her "annoying" perky personality nearly got her booted the week before), but LaDuke announced her recipe would be put on the Red Lobster menu starting today.

(Here's the recipe, and here's video of LaDuke and Nixon cooking up a batch.)

Labels: Kelsey Nixon, Reality show

David Archuleta the "noisy one"?

That's what "American Idol" winner David Cook said to his hometown TV station about his fellow "Idol" contestants, predicting who will take what roles when they tour the nation.

"I think Carly [Smithson] will be the mom, Michael Johns will be the prankster, and I think David Archuleta will be the noisy one," Cook told Fox 4 in Kansas City.

Meanwhile, Archuleta hit his first Hollywood movie premiere, walking the red carpet at L.A.'s Greek Theater Friday night for the debut of "Wall-E" - where at least one Disney executive mistook him for Bashful, one of the seven dwarfs.

(Photo: JustJared.com)

Labels: David Archuleta, Reality show

It sounds like a Quickfire Challenge on "Top Chef": Using a resort-cabin kitchenette and ingredients found at the resort's buffet table, create a satisfying and original dish that's not on the menu.

That was the challenge that David Latt, TV producer and culinary blogger, resolved during his recent stay at the Sundance resort.

Latt (whose credits include an Emmy for "Hill Street Blues" and an Emmy nomination for "Twin Peaks") is married to Michelle Satter, director of the Sundance Filmmakers Lab, so he's been sort of trapped in Provo Canyon for the last month. Not that it's an uncomfortable prison - "While she’s at the resort, all her meals are included, served buffet style," Latt wrote in a guest entry in Mark Bittman's "Bitten" blog for The New York Times. "The food is good but if I want to cook for her there are obstacles."

Latt's solution: Make a soup using the ingredients from Sundance's salad bar: "spinach, corn, scallions, garbanzo beans, carrots, chopped tomatoes and mushrooms." He also worked in some grilled chicken breasts, sour cream, bacon, half and half, corn bread, butter and olive oil, all from the buffet.

"From now on," Latt writes, "whenever I see a salad bar I’ll think of it as a two-fer: salad and soup."

(Photos from David Latt's blog, "Men Who Like to Cook.")

Labels: Sundance

As the writer of a blog that aims for humorous social commentary, George Carlin is almost like a patron saint - and news of his death Sunday hits hard.

For all of the laughter Carlin evoked from myself and millions of fans, I've always been struck with his incisive takes on the English language. (One of my favorites is a routine about phrases heard only in the airline industry: " 'Get on the plane! Get on the plane!' F--- you, I'm getting in the plane! Let Evel Knievel get on the plane.")

But Carlin also saw evil intent in the way corporate and government interests abused language. As he put it, "Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins."

One of his best takes was about the evolution of euphemisms for the condition "when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak."

In World War I, this was called "shell shock," a direct and easily understandable term. "Simple, honest, direct language," Carlin said. "Almost sounds like the guns themselves."

But over time, "shell shock" gave way to "battle fatigue," then "operational exhaustion," then "post-traumatic stress disorder," "and the pain is completely buried under jargon," Carlin said. "I'll bet you if we'd have still been calling it 'shell shock,' some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time."

Goodbye, George. Those of us who love your comedy will continue fighting the good fight.

(Photo: HBO)

Welcome to the Culture Vulture blog - a daily extension of the venerable (or at least it was before I got my hands on it) column that will continue to run every Tuesday in the newly revamped The Mix section of The Salt Lake Tribune.

The print column has been around since 1997, but the blog is brand spankin' new - so I'm keeping the name, even though there's now a review website called culturevulture.net and New York magazine's quite funny entertainment blog, Vulture.

The goal here is to take what my print predecessors, Brandon Griggs (now working for CNN.com) and Dan Nailen (who left us for Salt Lake magazine), did with the column - to comment on the offbeat and unusual in Utah popular culture - and do it on a daily basis.

To do that, and do it well, I'm going to need some help. That's where you come in. If you have any hot tips - interesting art exhibits, weird experiences at the theater, unusual billboards, sightings of “High School Musical” stars at Crown Burgers, whatever - send them along to me at vulture@sltrib.com.

(Photo by me, taken while in line at the Safari Trek ride at Legoland California.)